Saturday, February 02, 2008

It's Been awhile but here I am again


Looking back over the last 3 months, I see that blogging wasn't one of my main interest, I seem to get bogged down with the small things and between Thanksgiving and Christmas things changed tremendously.

The gallery I own and run moved location. The space is now on Main Street in downtown Memphis.I didn't get much notice that we needed to move and it took us a little while to actually begin the move; but when we finished, the results have been really worth the time and effort. Actually the move isn't totally finished I still have organizing to do in our drastically reduced storage area. But surprisingly all things were done in rapid time, the major part of the move was completed within one week. It involved painting the walls, building a small storage space, scrubbing the wood floors, moving the equipment and then finally getting the art moved and sorted. Nothing was broken and nothing was lost, so I feel really good about this.

The first two weeks after the move were right before Christmas, so the push was hard to get everything done and still think about the holidays. I had been ill around Thanksgiving and barely got better before the move began and I kept getting sick off and on while so much needed to be done. Now Christmas was coming and no decorations were up around the house and I am a big decorator, I love the color and little items that I have collected through the years; and of course with everything else there was no gift buying as yet and no time left; so pushing again to get that done with only two days before company arrives.

We made it, and company came but as luck would have it or possibly the unluckiest part, our company became ill with a stomach virus. So I had a bit of down time and rest time until after a couple of days had past and finally we were able to celebrate Christmas with everyone feeling up to being sociable.
Then no sooner did one set of company leave more company came in right before New Years and instead of resting and getting my own health back, we kept on going. When I should have been resting and trying to figure out where I was and how was I, instead of resting we decided to go on a short trip and then finally back home and back to running as fast as I could. To say the least I am tired

My plans for this year are to try and quit pushing myself. To take time to enjoy things around me. The last few months I was up and down in my emotions along with my health, and even saw changes in my sleeping patterns. It was becoming difficult to deal with the real and or even with some things that might have been imagined. So I am taking the time to just be, and learn more about who I am and what I can do, without being crazy; this is the major part of this year's agenda. I am not going to schedule any major shows this year, but have decided to enter competitions and submit for projects.

I am going to try and be a little more reflective this year as well and figure out where all the conflict comes from. I have learned that even when people tell me to let it go; that letting go is very hard thing for me to do, and I feel that I really need to learn from my mistakes and I need to take a few minutes to understand what brought on the conflict. I hope to be dropping some distractions so that I can try to get more organized and have less pressure on me all the time. I am always running full tilt and need to slow down. I need to see where I am instead of where I am going or where I have been. In other words, I need to take it easy.

The reflective part: I think I once posted that I am like a dog with an old bone when it comes to worry. I bury it...but soon dig it up again, examine it, sniff it, and chew on it for a bit to see if there is anything left of the taste of it. When I am satisfied I bury it again and sometimes if I am lucky it stays buried. I hope I learn from these exercises in "bone burying",but usually it is just revisiting the whole problem with nothing really solved. Again, like they say I need to let it go.

Maybe it would be better to not dig up these bones, but I don't think I can stop myself, as I think about my life and my coping skills, I realize there may be some truth to the saying " can't teach old dogs new tricks"......some day...maybe someday I will learn a new way.